On August 07 2021 04:19 Silvanel wrote: Read the article, what I find dubious is this constant mentioning of men-to-women ratio. I don't think this is a contributing factor, this is just a feature of the industry. Every IT company has huge numerical predominance of men, this just the way it is. In my company, the ratio is something like 9-1, but we don't have frat party culture, drinking at work. If the ratio was the cause of abuse, then the entire industry would look like Blizzard, but it does not.
Because there's a major difference between most other IT companies, which have better working conditions, rights, pay and reputation, and the games industry, which just cannot stop with the abuse of working conditions, rights, pay and reputation for sexual harassment. Stories of this stuff is just rampant through the games industry, people I know have left the games industry for the IT service industry because of how shitty everything is. They're basically different industries despite both being theoretically IT.
The gender issue and the type of person the games industry attracts into their workforce go hand in hand. I mean how many IT companies have a Playboy spread of a female video game character framed in their office where they work? I wouldn't say many but apparently CD Projekt Red thinks that's a good idea and its really doubtful that anyone but an emotionally childish and socially awkward male would think that.
Not sure what any of what you just said relates to anything the guy you just replied to.
Nothing you stated counters any notion that there just aren't that many women to go around in the IT industry, and the fact that Blizzard has a low women to men ratio is not a symptom or cause of their problems, as the rest of the IT industry works fine with the exact same problem
On August 07 2021 04:19 Silvanel wrote: Read the article, what I find dubious is this constant mentioning of men-to-women ratio. I don't think this is a contributing factor, this is just a feature of the industry. Every IT company has huge numerical predominance of men, this just the way it is. In my company, the ratio is something like 9-1, but we don't have frat party culture, drinking at work. If the ratio was the cause of abuse, then the entire industry would look like Blizzard, but it does not.
Because there's a major difference between most other IT companies, which have better working conditions, rights, pay and reputation, and the games industry, which just cannot stop with the abuse of working conditions, rights, pay and reputation for sexual harassment. Stories of this stuff is just rampant through the games industry, people I know have left the games industry for the IT service industry because of how shitty everything is. They're basically different industries despite both being theoretically IT.
The gender issue and the type of person the games industry attracts into their workforce go hand in hand. I mean how many IT companies have a Playboy spread of a female video game character framed in their office where they work? I wouldn't say many but apparently CD Projekt Red thinks that's a good idea and its really doubtful that anyone but an emotionally childish and socially awkward male would think that.
Not sure what any of what you just said relates to anything the guy you just replied to.
Nothing you stated counters any notion that there just aren't that many women to go around in the IT industry, and the fact that Blizzard has a low women to men ratio is not a symptom or cause of their problems, as the rest of the IT industry works fine with the exact same problem
I mean it relates pretty heavily no? It’s just an expansion of the prior post, saying much the same things with additional detail, I don’t think it was meant as a rebuttal in any way.
The games industry definitely seems to suffer from it being a big hobby and love of those who enter it. Regular IT gigs may be a big ambition of those who go in sure, they’re probably not the logical end point of the dreams of childhood, just sensible, good careers that folks may enjoy and be good at.
Working in games? ‘Hey I’ve loved games since I was 6, have super fond memories, wow it would be such a privilege to realise my dream!’ You’re following your dream, you’ll put up with all kinds of shit you wouldn’t otherwise do. Be paid less than you could just to work at a company like Blizzard. Put up with crunch periods and working conditions that afflict all, to cultures of harassment that mostly affect women going in.
And at the other end of the pay scale you have people in positions of power who can keep behaving as they did as a 16 year old in Ventrilo with their mates, but within a professional environment.
Not sure how you fix all that, why I’m not paid the big bucks. If some traction can be found sufficient to unionise and have game development treated like a comparable job elsewhere in IT that can’t be a bad thing.
On August 07 2021 04:19 Silvanel wrote: Read the article, what I find dubious is this constant mentioning of men-to-women ratio. I don't think this is a contributing factor, this is just a feature of the industry. Every IT company has huge numerical predominance of men, this just the way it is. In my company, the ratio is something like 9-1, but we don't have frat party culture, drinking at work. If the ratio was the cause of abuse, then the entire industry would look like Blizzard, but it does not.
Because there's a major difference between most other IT companies, which have better working conditions, rights, pay and reputation, and the games industry, which just cannot stop with the abuse of working conditions, rights, pay and reputation for sexual harassment. Stories of this stuff is just rampant through the games industry, people I know have left the games industry for the IT service industry because of how shitty everything is. They're basically different industries despite both being theoretically IT.
The gender issue and the type of person the games industry attracts into their workforce go hand in hand. I mean how many IT companies have a Playboy spread of a female video game character framed in their office where they work? I wouldn't say many but apparently CD Projekt Red thinks that's a good idea and its really doubtful that anyone but an emotionally childish and socially awkward male would think that.
Not sure what any of what you just said relates to anything the guy you just replied to.
Nothing you stated counters any notion that there just aren't that many women to go around in the IT industry, and the fact that Blizzard has a low women to men ratio is not a symptom or cause of their problems, as the rest of the IT industry works fine with the exact same problem
But I would argue that very much the low women to men ratio, especially in higher management, is the exact reason why the games industry is especially toxic towards women that even the IT industry is not. How many reports of completely systematic and intentional sexual harassment and general creepiness from the games industry have surfaced? This isn't like, say, Intel's CEO getting into a consensual affair with a co-worker where the details get pretty grey (eg. power differential can make things get pretty nasty) but actual textbook definitions of frequently occurring rape and sexual harassment. And not just with one company, the reports keep popping up no matter the geographic location.
What office in the 2010s and 2020s would have bare walls except for a large landscape poster of a Playboy spread of your famous female character on display? You wouldn't see that at Google or Microsoft or just about any other professional company because shit is not only awkward but exactly one of those things that a single woman in upper management would tell you to not do because shit makes one gender particularly uncomfortable.
The gender ratio is a problem because the only people who want to work in the games industry are mostly (let's be honest here) nerds. You don't get the exact type of degeneracy in even adjacent fields because they're there to work and not turn it into a socially maladjusted openly misogynistic frathouse run on 4chan grade memes. The gender ratio is really important in cases like this because it forces changes to company culture, which a large chunk is pretty damn misogynistic let us be honest.
On August 07 2021 04:19 Silvanel wrote: Read the article, what I find dubious is this constant mentioning of men-to-women ratio. I don't think this is a contributing factor, this is just a feature of the industry. Every IT company has huge numerical predominance of men, this just the way it is. In my company, the ratio is something like 9-1, but we don't have frat party culture, drinking at work. If the ratio was the cause of abuse, then the entire industry would look like Blizzard, but it does not.
Because there's a major difference between most other IT companies, which have better working conditions, rights, pay and reputation, and the games industry, which just cannot stop with the abuse of working conditions, rights, pay and reputation for sexual harassment. Stories of this stuff is just rampant through the games industry, people I know have left the games industry for the IT service industry because of how shitty everything is. They're basically different industries despite both being theoretically IT.
The gender issue and the type of person the games industry attracts into their workforce go hand in hand. I mean how many IT companies have a Playboy spread of a female video game character framed in their office where they work? I wouldn't say many but apparently CD Projekt Red thinks that's a good idea and its really doubtful that anyone but an emotionally childish and socially awkward male would think that.
Not sure what any of what you just said relates to anything the guy you just replied to.
Nothing you stated counters any notion that there just aren't that many women to go around in the IT industry, and the fact that Blizzard has a low women to men ratio is not a symptom or cause of their problems, as the rest of the IT industry works fine with the exact same problem
I mean it relates pretty heavily no? It’s just an expansion of the prior post, saying much the same things with additional detail, I don’t think it was meant as a rebuttal in any way.
The games industry definitely seems to suffer from it being a big hobby and love of those who enter it. Regular IT gigs may be a big ambition of those who go in sure, they’re probably not the logical end point of the dreams of childhood, just sensible, good careers that folks may enjoy and be good at.
Working in games? ‘Hey I’ve loved games since I was 6, have super fond memories, wow it would be such a privilege to realise my dream!’ You’re following your dream, you’ll put up with all kinds of shit you wouldn’t otherwise do. Be paid less than you could just to work at a company like Blizzard. Put up with crunch periods and working conditions that afflict all, to cultures of harassment that mostly affect women going in.
And at the other end of the pay scale you have people in positions of power who can keep behaving as they did as a 16 year old in Ventrilo with their mates, but within a professional environment.
Not sure how you fix all that, why I’m not paid the big bucks. If some traction can be found sufficient to unionise and have game development treated like a comparable job elsewhere in IT that can’t be a bad thing.
I do actually disagree with the post I responded to. The thing is that the gender ratio issue is probably less of a problem for typical IT sector jobs because the pay and conditions are far more reasonable. This attracts more normal and well adjusted people who just want to work to make a living, which in turn creates a more stable and professional work environment. People go in, do their job, leave their job and get paid. There's people who give up on the games industry to work in that sector because they're sick of the self-sacrifice and general harassment, they don't want the drama and crunching and entry level retail sector wages.
Like you noted, the games industry attracts a certain type of person who is willing to put aside a whole load of personal wellbeing to work on video games. This in turn creates a bit of a power imbalance where a lot of workers want to work on specific games in the industry like it has been for Blizzard for significant length of time (remember: Blizzard paying low has been known for a LONG time) and upper management is willing to exploit that. It doesn't help that a lot of people in the games industry are clearly very emotionally immature and socially maladjusted nerds.
Better gender ratios wouldn't stop the low pay and crunching (you need unions for that) but it would at least probably decrease the incidence of sexual harassment of the degree we see at places like Riot, Activision/Blizzard and Ubisoft where frathouse type culture is commonplace. On the other hand Nintendo, one of the places where there is an active effort to promote women into serious leadership positions, has a generally good reputation of being a fairly decent place for women to work despite being in patriarchal Japan and that really shows in their very broadly appealing software output like Animal Crossing, Mario and Zelda.
The shit conditions of the games industry, the awful gender ratio, frathouse culture and high incidence of sexual harassment and rape reported in so many different studios is something you can't just conveniently separate. They're all related and tied to each other. Like in what workplace with any significant number of women would men feel comfortable telling women that they want to rape them. This is the level of degeneracy we've declined to in the games industry and the exact sort of behavior that would get you beat up if there were more women in the office. I don't think people really understand just how many reports of explicit sociopathy and comical misogyny exists in the games industry.
Stalker that is an excellent post. People can't treat Actiblizz like some kind of isolated problem in an industry that is working fine. These problems keep coming out at company after company and the details show more than anything that the low number of women working in the industry is definitely related to these problems. Imagine doing a 'cubicle crawl' in an office with 50% women. Its not going to happen. Just for context in case anyone wants to deny the problems are industry wide: https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/24/sexual-abuse-allegations-rock-the-game-industry-again/ This from 2020:
The allegations this time have hit every part of the industry: game developers, marketers, publicists, influencers, game journalists, livestreamers, and companies big (Ubisoft) and small.
While many women faced further harassment from anonymous posters on Twitter, this wave of allegations was also marked by an outpouring of supportive comments. They included women who corroborated the stories of women who came out with stories of abuse, which made it harder for the accused men to hide behind denials.
“I stand by you” or “I believe you” are common reactions on many of the posts from survivors. Clearly, as last year’s eruption demonstrated, the survivors sharing their stories took enormous risks because they had to weigh whether the disclosures would lead to backlash. Much of that backlash has happened, but support has been forthcoming as well.
That's after 2018's Riot games incident and then Alec Holowka in 2019.
I think You are kind of contradicting Yourself. Apart from IT there are other industries that have uneven gender ratios, for example mining and heavy manufacturing. There we can clearly see that some places are nice to work in, while other are shitholes. It all comes down to factors You already mentioned: bad management willing to overlook abuse, people willing to put with shit in order to work at their dream place, superstar/frat house mentality, allowing drinking and sexually explicit materials at workplaces. I highly doubt the ratio, if it magically would switch to 50:50 would fix that if other factors remained.
And before You say it, no women are not less abusive than men, the most stark, work related abuse I ever witnessed was women-on-women in 100% women department.
Pigging back a little. I don't understand how they could tolerate sexually explicit materials in the workplace (posters of naked women etc.). This is a huge no-no in every office in Poland. You only see those in workshops or small factories run by independent capital, not thinkable in a corporation. It's something of a class issue, people with university education in Poland won't do that. Like, WTF what were they thinking? What if some external auditor or government official or even guest or supplier comes over? Weren't they concerned about what they would think? Or even their coworkers, I mean I am guy and like most guys I like the sight of pretty women, but I would not be ok with something like that being displayed in a workplace.
On August 07 2021 17:16 Silvanel wrote: I think You are kind of contradicting Yourself. Apart from IT there are other industries that have uneven gender ratios, for example mining and heavy manufacturing. There we can clearly see that some places are nice to work in, while other are shitholes. It all comes down to factors You already mentioned: bad management willing to overlook abuse, people willing to put with shit in order to work at their dream place, superstar/frat house mentality, allowing drinking and sexually explicit materials at workplaces. I highly doubt the ratio, if it magically would switch to 50:50 would fix that if other factors remained.
And before You say it, no women are not less abusive than men, the most stark, work related abuse I ever witnessed was women-on-women in 100% women department.
Pigging back a little. I don't understand how they could tolerate sexually explicit materials in the workplace (posters of naked women etc.). This is a huge no-no in every office in Poland. You only see those in workshops or small factories run by independent capital, not thinkable in a corporation. It's something of a class issue, people with university education in Poland won't do that. Like, WTF what were they thinking? What if some external auditor or government official or even guest or supplier comes over? Weren't they concerned about what they would think? Or even their coworkers, I mean I am guy and like most guys I like the sight of pretty women, but I would not be ok with something like that being displayed in a workplace.
There's massive differences betewen the gaming industry and mining/manufacturing though. For a start, the dominant atmosphere in mining/manufacturing is people worknig their asses off from the beginning of the day to the end of the day. Anyone who helps is a friend and women in those industries tend to get respect for their work. The problems in the gaming industry are partly down to being sat around all day looking at a computer and doing fairly boring work. Of course, that doesn't mean that hiring more women wouldn't do wonders for the 'frat house mentality'. I'll put that in quotes because its better described as a sexually abusive mentality. Like I said before, can you imagine doing a cubicle crawl in an office that's 50% women? You would probably be fired immediately and a black eye or two. The sexually abusive mentality in the games industry is partly an expression of dominance of the men over the women. That dominance goes away when you don't have the numbers.
The office environment differs from company to company. For example, in my office there are no cubicles, there are zones (which are open spaces) and to access each zone You need a reason. So, You can't really do office crawl because You won't be able to access large parts of the building. And if we look past that, I can confidently say, that if some jerk came and try to harass women from our team, we would first see it (because it is open space) and secondly wouldn't allow it. Not to mention that being drunk while in office in Poland usually ends with police being called and contract termination. Unless this is allowed by higher ups, but this is the 'frat house mentality' which is NOK in my book.
I repeat, this is about work culture, about company policies, about what is accepted and what is not. If You see someone being jerk, don't stand around, do something. I am afraid, You, are trying to fix something which is not the cause. I mean, in IT there is generally a lack of qualified people, being a woman is not the obstacle here. We will hire a goat or martian if it can code.
The question you have to ask why this is the company culture all across the gaming industry, no matter the company and geographic location.
This is not a Blizzard problem, this is a Riot problem, an Insomniac problem, an Ubisoft problem, a Naughty Dog problem, an Activision problem, a problem at Obsidian Entertainment, a problem at Rocksteady Studios, etc. All of them, accused of ignoring and allowing a culture of misogyny to foster and leave women feeling vulnerable in the workplace. All different companies, all in different locations, all have the same sort of shit of men being complete degenerates. Not isolated drunk man doing drunk man bullshit but actual degenerates of the highest order than would be beat up by bystanders if they did that shit on the street.
Again: what workplace has a Playboy spread of a video game character on their office walls, what workplace has workers casually telling female co-workers that they want to rape them, what workplace has men walking into breastfeeding areas just to stare at women. This type of story isn't an isolated case at Blizzard, this shit gets reported like every month at a different company.
The gender ratio dictate how they are dealing with the company policy. The old boys club mentality is still a problem in other industries, its just a far bigger problem in the games industry because of the people they attract. And by that I mean socially maladjusted male nerds brought up on internet culture. Again, this is clear in the type of games they make and design. A higher quantity of women at Blizzard wouldn't create character designs like those from early 2000s Blizzard nor belittle people who publicly ask if they could stop with the high heels + bikini armor combination.
All of this ties together, you can't just say "COMPANY POLICY" as if it will solve the problems of having a workforce filled with chuds. Chuds will just hide it better, like Insomniac getting into a heated internal debate on whether or not they needed to give their female character (Rivet) bigger tits and hips to make her look female. Like a former Insomniac worker stated, she doesn't need TITS AND HIPS to look female, it goes against the themes of Rift Apart and she's a fucking space fox so why the fuck is everyone being so creepy. This is the type of base level trash in the industry.
The problem of wideplace abuse of working rights can't be fixed without unions, yes. Women are absolutely capable of workplace harassment and in some cases are especially vicious in how they abuse co-workers, yes. But the problem of rampant misogyny, the thing that most uniquely plagues the gaming industry, can absolutely be handled better with better gender ratios. I need to stress again that I do not think people understand just how rampant this sort of shit is in the games industry. You cannot compare the games industry problems to other industries for a very good reason. It is no surprise that Nintendo of all companies is able to create full priced console games that are very appealing to women because...they actually have a lot of women working as game designers in their company.
The comparison with the normal software sector imo isn't entirely right, game development is a strongly creative industry similarly to the movie industry which also struggles with misogyny. And unlike most software developers most gaming companies don't give a rat's ass about creating a positive inclusive company culture. The industry is underpaid and overworked, the people are likely mostly feeling undervalued and stressed out. So I'm not too surprised the atmosphere is at times toxic and targets minorities at the workplace, although the extend is still baffling.
But I agree that the target audience likely has an influence and that the internet culture likely is part of the problem.
I do agree with Your points about the gaming industry in general, and I do think this is THE source of the problem. Unless we address the problems like people being underpaid, overworked, over stressed, bad management, company prioritizing delivery over well-being of its employees, not much is going to change. That was mine point all along: the IT industry is showing that You can have a safe working environment with uneven gander ratios, that means it is not the cause. Let's address those other problem first.
When I put more thought into it, I also think that people are being too invested emotionally (in game industry) into products they are making. They often can't see it for what it really is, a work of fiction, a product. Part of their job compensation is an emotional payback, the "look what a great game WE made". Which is fine in itself, after all this is the same mechanism that volunteer work uses, but mangers and companies in game industry learned how to abuse it for their gain. Obviously if someone is doing something they love, You can pay them less and stress/exhaust them much more.
The opening arguments podcast did some in depth coverage of the situation legally. (Their most recent episode and one a week or so earlier).
Main highlights:
It sounds like ActiBlizz is pretty screwed, but not 100% screwed. They will 100% try to settle and the prosecutor is likely to do so but on a very harsh sentence (this will be a fine and forced oversight, as how can you jail a company?). They may still take a chance if behavior even more egregious emerges, but the podcast thought that unlikely. Fyi, this means the company will survive. Their current behavior is vast reforms level rather than "disincorporate" level.
There's nothing particularly nefarious about the law firm Activision hired. Are they pieces of shit? Yes, but no moreso than any other large law firm, and they're better than some.
Some individuals are 100% screwed legally, but they're the ones who committed or covered up the acts blatantly. They'll be addressed individually both criminally and civilly in other cases, and we'll see those cases get filed in response to the state case (as they either were asked to hold off by the state or didn't have enough evidence without the filing).
(As a personal aside, it is very unlikely any C level exec other than maybe HR provably covered anything up criminally, ie, beyond a reasonable doubt. The reason for this is that if they had, the state would have accused them by name of doing so and that would have been the headline. They may still be held so civilly, but that's going to be brought by employees most likely. It is still possible, but we will find that out for sure in discovery)
Activision and Atari both have publicly had known sexism issues from their start (the prototypes for the Atari were named after the secretaries with the largest breasts, and Activision's founders worked there during that time period).
The law firm Activision hired is supposedly connected to Activision exec/Republican proponent of torture Fran Townsend, so it should be a massive conflict of interest for Wilmerhale to be the "3rd party" investigating their behavior. When they try to turn around later and claim that they had an internal investigation to clear their name, they're going to be 100% full of shit.
ActiBlizz is also a former client of WilmerHale, they’re going to have the incentive to side with their storied clientele, which is another reason they’re not an acceptable law firm for ActiBlizz to be employing in this circumstance.
And that’s entirely sidestepping the whole union busting thing WilmerHale does which is also a good reason for the ABK Workers Alliance to demand that WilmerHale fuck off.
Yeah they're terrible, but they're just a normal law firm.
This is a normal situation for a huge law firm to be called in. Every single one of the size of WilmerHale has a whole department dedicated to it.
Now, the company could put pressure on WilmerHale to cover stuff up, but it'd be idiotic to do that during a state investigation and would come out super fast (the state of California bringing this is one of the reasons ActiBlizz is so screwed legally. They wouldn't have stepped in without overwhelming evidence already. CA also has some of the strictest and most comprehensive workplace sexual harassment laws in the country ).
As far as scummy and shady connections like the ones you all just listed, that's true of literally every large law firm. If you try to find one without someone who has openly praised John Woo's torture memos then you're just SOL. Same for sketchy connections to the company and GOP pols, especially as it turns out that ActiBlizz is some weird feeder for retired GOP officials.
Basically, so far it does not sound like ActiBlizz hired them to run a cover up based on public actions and statements. They may change their mind, but trying to run an internal coverup is the worst move they could make while under active investigation by the state. (And WilmerHale would probably refuse out of self interest)
probably a reality in many companies we are not aware of. and many others have various other problems that may not be sexually motivated.
suicide numbers are high.
ppl that are surprised by news like this and think this is a 1 company problem are a bit naive in my opinion. but it's probably best not to think about the bad in society, cuz you end up not enjoying life if you're constantly thinking about stuff like that.
On August 10 2021 01:32 KalWarkov wrote: probably a reality in many companies we are not aware of. and many others have various other problems that may not be sexually motivated. suicide numbers are high. ppl that are surprised by news like this and think this is a 1 company problem are a bit naive in my opinion. but it's probably best not to think about the bad in society, cuz you end up not enjoying life if you're constantly thinking about stuff like that.
Boomers have a saying : "Don't Mix Business With Pleasure"
Things are worse at game studios because the lines are blurred between work and play. Everyone I know working at game studios notices a lack of professional distance between different employee//management levels. Also, Publishers and Studios promise giant annual bonuses based on huge sales numbers along with the "fun" of gaming making. This is supposed to replace the money your experience and ability can normally draw. Graduating from a four year software engineering program my two lowest salaried job offers came from game studios. LOL. Listening to these recruiter clowns yammer away while they are offering me 25% less than any one else was fun.
It doesn't take much research to realize its been like this for 45 years. People who buy the cock and bull stories game studio recruiters tell are either a bit naive or want to believe in their dreams becoming a reality as opposed to clearly viewing the reality in front of them.
It has been like this since the dawn of the industry because it is inherent in the making of the product. Its play.. but while you are at work. Mattel even fell prey to this trend. You'd think a company like Mattel, with all its experience designing toys and games before video games, would avoid the pitfalls of the industry. Mattel ran afoul of the Federal Trade Commission with BS promises. The FTCs interference with Mattel compromised the decision making autonomy of "Mattel Electronics".... and Mattel pulled the plug on "Mattel Electronics".
The Video Game Industry is a circus. PT Barnum said it best : "There Is A Sucker Born Every Minute".
On August 10 2021 01:32 KalWarkov wrote: it's probably best not to think about the bad in society, cuz you end up not enjoying life if you're constantly thinking about stuff like that.
it makes me thankful for the top notch people I have around me.
The Shareholders have now joined in. What this means who knows seeing how in the US board talks are private.
SOC Investment Group says that Activision Blizzard's recent promises to improve its culture do not go "nearly far enough to address the deep and widespread issues with equity, inclusion, and human capital management" that the company is facing.
On August 08 2021 17:25 Silvanel wrote: I do agree with Your points about the gaming industry in general, and I do think this is THE source of the problem. Unless we address the problems like people being underpaid, overworked, over stressed, bad management, company prioritizing delivery over well-being of its employees, not much is going to change. That was mine point all along: the IT industry is showing that You can have a safe working environment with uneven gander ratios, that means it is not the cause. Let's address those other problem first.
When I put more thought into it, I also think that people are being too invested emotionally (in game industry) into products they are making. They often can't see it for what it really is, a work of fiction, a product. Part of their job compensation is an emotional payback, the "look what a great game WE made". Which is fine in itself, after all this is the same mechanism that volunteer work uses, but mangers and companies in game industry learned how to abuse it for their gain. Obviously if someone is doing something they love, You can pay them less and stress/exhaust them much more.
I do agree to an extent that better conditions will ultimately improve professionalism in the industry because no one works in the games industry unless they really want to ditch 20% income to work on games.
But gamer/nerd culture is ultimately pretty trash if we’re going to be honest with ourselves. It feels like only yesterday that Teamliquid had honest to god debates on whether or not using “rape” as a descriptor was good or not. It’s one of those things that wouldn’t be an issue if more women were in the community, sort of like how the iPhone bendgate problem wouldn’t be a problem if there were more female designers because they’d have designed a phone that works as expected in someone’s back pocket.
The biggest problem seems to be people brought up on early 2000s/2010s internet culture. The lead designer for Apex, for instance, just got fired because past tweets from the late 2000s surfaced him being a huge 4chan grade chud with shitty comments about women and black people. Granted it seems he’s improved in being less shitty but a lot of nerds absolutely do not unfortunately and see more female involvement as some bizarre threat to their hobbies.
a bunch of "video game journalists" claimed "ATVI's scandal CAUSED a decrease in their stock price". CAUSE and EFFECT are hard to prove. During a similar time period EA and Take2 Interactive had similar declines in their stock price. So, umm , ya.
ATVI stock was $90 before the story broke. Its now over $85 with Forbes calling ATVI undervalued.
On August 11 2021 08:04 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: The Shareholders have now joined in. What this means who knows seeing how in the US board talks are private.
SOC Investment Group says that Activision Blizzard's recent promises to improve its culture do not go "nearly far enough to address the deep and widespread issues with equity, inclusion, and human capital management" that the company is facing.
this activist shareholder group always takes these exact positions. if anything, this kind of yap just provides cover for ATVI execs.
"the usual laundry list of SOC requests..."
Here is a good analysis of this investor group's position.
TL ; DR : SOC saying what they always say. Kotick replies : "i'm sorry your feelings were hurt" the SOC is making demands that will never be met.
ATVI holds the ultimate hammer. Blizzard's leadership is no longer married to California. the UCLA gang that started Blizzard is long gone. If the state of California fucks with ATVI too much then ATVI can threaten to move Blizzard to Texas.
a bunch of "video game journalists" claimed "ATVI's scandal CAUSED a decrease in their stock price". CAUSE and EFFECT are hard to prove. During a similar time period EA and Take2 Interactive had similar declines in their stock price. So, umm , ya.
ATVI stock was $90 before the story broke. Its now over $85 with Forbes calling ATVI undervalued.
On August 11 2021 08:04 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: The Shareholders have now joined in. What this means who knows seeing how in the US board talks are private.
SOC Investment Group says that Activision Blizzard's recent promises to improve its culture do not go "nearly far enough to address the deep and widespread issues with equity, inclusion, and human capital management" that the company is facing.
TL ; DR : SOC saying what they always say. Kotick replies : "i'm sorry your feelings were hurt" the SOC is making demands that will never be met.
ATVI holds the ultimate hammer. Blizzard's leadership is no longer married to California. the UCLA gang that started Blizzard is long gone. If the state of California fucks with ATVI too much then ATVI can threaten to move Blizzard to Texas.
Blizzard is avoiding Taxes anyway. So what's the real threat behind this?
EPT
